JC Penney Permanently Closing 200 Stores

According to WGME, retailer JC Penney is expected to file for bankruptcy protection as early as next week and plans to close approximately 200 stores nationwide.

The Texas-based company, in operation for nearly 120 years, has about 850 stores and plans to close one quarter of them in the near future. Even before the coronavirus pandemic caused most of their brick and mortar locations to temporarily close, they were facing a $4 billion debt.

The company has yet to announce which stores will be closing.

In Maine, there are JC Penney locations in Waterville, Bangor, Auburn, Presque Isle, and South Portland.

According to Wikipedia, JC Penney was founded in 1902 in Kemmerer, Wyoming by James Cash Penney and William Henry McManus. Growing from one store to 34 in the span of a decade, the company renamed all of their locations JC Penney in 1913. At the height of the chain's popularity, in 1973, the company had 2,053 stores.

Fun fact: Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, worked for JC Penney in the 1940s.